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Raise the bar on due diligence

Require transparent suppliers

In order for companies to make sound and responsible business decisions, it is critical they know who they’re doing business with. Anonymous companies (entities that disguise the identities of their owners) raise the cost of doing business, undermine financial stability and make it difficult for companies to drive integrity in their supply and investments. Globally, the lack of ownership transparency is creating financial, reputational, operational and regulatory risks for companies and responsible businesses and investors are taking action to tackle this issue. We want you to join them.

5% GDP

global cost of corruption

3.8 billion

USD in recent fines

10% cost

increase for business

77 countries

are taking action

91% of executives

want to know who owns companies

Business

and Ownership Transparency

NEWS

UPDATE

Senior officials at scandal-plagued state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) withheld information from its board and took some decisions without the board’s approval, according to a Malaysian government audit of the fund that was declassified on Tuesday. Malaysia, under former Prime Minister Najib Razak, had classified the audit report in 2016 under the Officials Secrets Act when the fund’s financial troubles were being investigated.

Swiss authorities have raided several locations in Switzerland as they ramp up a criminal investigation into suspected money laundering connected to crimes involving Angola’s sovereign wealth fund and its central bank, prosecutors said on Friday. Switzerland’s Attorney General opened criminal proceedings in April in response to the reports connected with alleged offences involving assets held by the National Bank of Angola and the Fondo Soberano de Angola, the Angolan sovereign wealth fund, the prosecutors said in a statement.

As the compliance deadline for the U.S. Treasury Department’s customer due diligence and beneficial ownership rule arrived on Friday federal banking regulators clarified their expectations by releasing long-awaited examination guidelines. Meanwhile, bankers are bracing for run-ins with examiners as well as potential backlash from customers hesitant to share newly-required information.

Crypto-currencies such as Bitcoin at worst facilitate the financing of terror, money laundering and other criminal activities, said Axel Weber, chairman, UBS Group. They are open to abuse and Switzerland as a financial centre needs to be careful not to take risks, he told the bank’s annual general meeting.

The trial of a former head of the Vatican bank and an Italian lawyer on charges of money laundering and embezzlement began on Wednesday with the court hearing of missing documents and secret funds in Switzerland.

The U.S. Treasury Department’s Customer Due Diligence (CDD) rule, also known as the beneficial ownership rule, was a long time coming but it goes into force this week. More than four years elapsed from the 2012 initial proposal from by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) — the Treasury Department’s lead agency in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing — to the issuance of the final rule in 2016.

On January 31, 2018 the Criminal Finances Act 2017 (CFA) introduced unexplained wealth orders (UWOs). This is a new investigative power enabling UK enforcement authorities (such as the Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs; the National Crime Agency; and the Serious Fraud Office (SFO)) to seize and dispose of any property suspected to be obtained using illicit wealth.

European Union finance ministers agreed on Tuesday to remove eight jurisdictions, including much-criticised Panama, from the bloc’s blacklist of tax havens, one month after the list was set up.
The decision prompted an outcry from lawmakers and activists.

The U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) highlighted cyber security, and banks’ relationship with financial technology companies, and anti-money laundering, as key concerns for the federal banking system in its Semiannual Risk Perspective for Fall 2017.

European Union officials have proposed removing eight jurisdictions from the blacklist of tax havens the bloc adopted in December, in what critics may see as a blow to its campaign against tax avoidance.